


slouches towards jakku to be born

by peradi



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, F/F, F/M, Force Sensitive Finn, M/M, Polyamory, ghost story, luke is the best teacher, rey is a palpatine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 12:57:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6705352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peradi/pseuds/peradi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jakku is a graveyard, overbrimming with ghosts. On a quest to discover her ilum crystal -- to make herself a new lightsabre -- Rey runs into some dead things, and finds out that she's heir to a legacy (just not the one she wanted.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	slouches towards jakku to be born

**Author's Note:**

> with thanks to [kadigan](kadigan2.tumblr.com) for the prompt that inspired this
> 
> this is a little odd. its a ghost story and also a story about dead people and could have been a long fic but i jammed it into 6000 odd words. let me know what you think! i can be found on tumblr at [swearydroid](swearydroid.tumblr.com)
> 
> title from the ever popular 'the second coming' yeats

“So,” says Finn, in a voice thick with exasperation, “we’re going back to Jakku because you had a dream about a crystal.”

 

“Not just any crystal,” says Rey, “it’s an  _ ilum _ crystal -- it’s what lightsabres are made of. And it’s singing to me.”

 

“In the days of the Jedi Order,” says Luke, “younglings were sent to the ice caves of Ilum to retrieve the crystal that would become their lightsabre.” He hesitates for a moment and continues, “Of course, Rey’s  _ got _ to be awkward.”

 

Rey jabs him in the kidneys.

 

“I am your Master; you will show me respect,” says Luke. His stern ‘I’m The Last Of The Jedi’ voice is ruined by his grin, his starry dancing eyes. 

 

“But,” Finn says, not to be deterred from his original point. “We’re not going to Ilum. We’re going to Jakku.  _ Back  _ to Jakku. Why are we  _ always _ going back to Jakku.”

 

“Because,” says Rey, “that’s where the crystal is. It’s  _ singing _ to me”

 

That’s the only word she can think to describe the sensation, but it falls woefully short of the bone-vibrating  _ cry _ that snatches at her as Chewbacca brings the Falcon into the atmosphere. Her insides are quivering; her breath comes short. Luke offers her his hand and she takes it, squeezing tight, feeling the comforting thud of his heart.  _ I am alive and here and I am alive and here _ , it says. She exhales. 

 

Focus on that, only on that. Her training has opened up eyes she didn’t know she possessed: every time she sees someone it is a struggle  _ not  _ to read their mind. She must maintain rigid control, always, durasteel bars locked down tight over her mind. 

 

It is  _ exhausting _ . 

 

Master Skywalker has assured her that, with time, she will learn to shutter down those extra senses; she’ll learn to ignore the constant badgering of the Force. 

 

_ All things with time _ , he is fond of saying. He is a man of infinite, wearied patience and sometimes she wants to scream at him. 

 

Of course, he knows that; and he still treats her with endless kindness; and that makes it even  _ worse _ , makes her feel like some feral ill-mannered desert cur -- 

 

_ I came from the desert, Rey,  _ he says.  _ There’s nothing wrong with your frustration; permit yourself to feel it; just never become consumed. We are all human. We all feel emotion. Jedi are not blank slates, we cannot be -- we are human, we feel, and our feelings are not sin; they are what ties us to the Force. It is normal and natural and right to be anxious or frightened or angry.  _

 

_ Yes Master _ , she says as the ship slinks lower. Jakku stretches out beneath them, red and limitless.

 

The Force-bond shivers with Rey’s anticipation. At first she had found the mind-link with Luke bizarre, even frightening; but now she is comforted by it. No matter where she goes, she is never alone. His presence is a warm, comforting weight at the back of her mind. It is the taste of fresh salt and the sound of waves frothing against the shore; it is a blue-green ocean full of light.

 

“Whereabouts do we land?” says Chewie. “I need your guidance, co-pilot.”

 

“Ugh,” Finn says, looking out at the desert below them. The rust-metal ground; the pitiless blue sky. There’s no green on this world, none at all -- and it is all profoundly alien. Rey feels no flutter of nostalgia, no grip of  _ yes this is home _ ; only the insistence that  _ this is where I must be where I must be _ because that is where her crystal is.

 

She’s going to build her own lightsabre. She’ll take the crystal from wherever it is, and she’ll take the materials Luke has hoarded, and when she is done she’ll have her own weapon. It will be hers, and hers alone. It is right, perhaps, that she is drawn to Jakku for this: after all, she built herself in the desert, built a survivor from the wreckage of a girl left weeping; built the capacity to love from infinite loneliness; built herself in the face of the howling desert wind that seeks only to devour. 

 

_ Don’t be insulted Master _ , she thinks,  _ I think your father’s lightsabre is very fine -- it’s just -- _

 

_ I understand. I know _ . 

 

And he does. And he does. The ocean, the glitter of sun on water, all that green. Anakin Skywalker’s lightsabre on Rey’s hip, jostling her with each stride, singing to her --  _ this is your first step  _ \-- but it is  _ different _ somehow. Right, but not right enough. 

 

“Close your eyes,” says Luke, “tell us where to go.”

 

Rey closes her eyes. The song grows high, clawing at her spine, until she grits her teeth against its shrillness.  _ I am listening _ , she says,  _ show me _ .

 

At once, she is  _ snatched  _ and pulled headlong into the desert and all around is blistering heat and iron-brand sun and air that sucks the moisture from her lips, leaving striations of blood and cooked skin. The ground quakes, red sand running in a river under her, surging towards a great buckling monster of a ship, falling apart and burning, smoke a choking morass under the blue blue sky. 

 

The high sweet stench of cooked meat fills the air.  _ Here, here, here,  _ says a voice she does not recognise. 

 

A hand takes hers. The skin is soft, lined, an old man unused to labour; a voice says  _ child I know you -- _

 

And then she is breathing in, breathing deep and hard, breathing so deep and so hard that her lungs ache and her eyes water. Luke is holding her hand, Finn crouched at her side, they are too  _ close  _ \-- and both are shunted back a foot.

 

“Rey,” Luke chides, stepping forwards once more; Finn holds back. His smile is reassuring. Focus on that, she tells herself, her vision splintering from the tears -- focus. 

 

She says. “It’s in a Star Destroyer. Near Nawre Outpost.”

  
  


* * *

 

 

“What’s your earliest memory?” Rey said to Finn, three weeks ago. She’d dragged back a Jedi Master from the outer reaches of nowhere; he had done the impossible and survived a lightsabre to the spine; everything seemed, more or less, okay. And now there was time for chatter. Chatter! Gossip! Rey could sit in Finn’s quarters (quarters! A whole room, all to himself) with her quarterstaff lovingly resting on her knees and they could talk about anything they wanted. And when they had finished talking they could go and get food from the canteen, and water from the refresher, and Rey could barely stop smiling from the joy of it. 

 

Finn shared in her delight: it was like a big glowing circle of wonder, discovering new things, new happinesses -- but not everyone seemed to understand them.  _ Poe, Poe, look at this; they do double portions if you ask! You don’t even have to do extra work -- hey, hey why are you sad? What’s wrong?  _ Or Finn saying:  _ Poe, Poe, Poe they’re giving me physio, saying I don’t have to fight if I don’t want to -- believe me I want to -- but is that right? Is it a trap? Is it a test? -- _

 

Anyway.

 

“My bunk,” Finn said, at once, “the mattress was too hard, and FN-0871 snored, and I lay there awake and thought about how much my leg hurt. I don’t remember anything before that; I don’t remember why my leg hurt. I just remember that instant. I was…” he paused, thoughtful, “maybe four? Three? No, wait, FN-0871 was decommissioned when he turned five; so I would have been three.”

 

And Rey said, “ _ Huh _ ,” knowing that if Poe had heard that he would have gone milky pale and started clutching at Finn’s hands and although Finn clearly enjoys the hand-clutching he isn’t entirely too sure what to do with the rest of it: the wide-eyed concern. He’s never had it before and the surfeit in the Resistance threatens to swamp him. 

 

Rey can relate. 

 

“I don’t really have a clear one,” she said, “it’s more a...feeling? Warm hands in my hair. A smile. A song -- can’t remember the words.” She hummed a little snatch. “And my hair, three buns along my head,” and she reached up,  toyed with her hair, haloed in a braid around her scalp. General Organa had done it the first time, showed Finn, and now he braided her hair every morning before training, when she was still wet from the refresher. She showered twice a day now, feeling positively hedonistic, purring and mewling as the water cascaded over her. 

 

(Once, she came out of the refresher to find Jessika Pava waiting in line. Rey, a towel slung around her waist, had grinned welcome; Jessika flushed, hard and red, and mumbled something about  _ busy in there _ ? And Rey had said  _ it’s nice to have the time to myself, never had it before. _ And Jessika said,  _ yes yes yes I suppose so I suppose --  _ and then dashed into the shower, stifling giggles against her palm.)

 

(Pilots were an odd bunch.)

 

“The fear came later,” she said. “I remember the taste: like sour old milk. I remember the feel of it, low in my stomach, this stabbing curdling  _ thing _ like a reptile eating me up.  And I remember Unkar holding my arm til it bruised. And I remember him saying  _ they ain’t comin’ back for you girlie, not a burden like you, not -- “ _ Her voice snagged, caught, tears simmering behind her eyes. 

 

“Can I?” said Finn, reaching up. Rey nodded. He cradled her face in his palms, thumbed away her tears. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay.”

 

* * *

 

Nawre Outpost, somehow, is even shittier than Niima. It really is an accomplishment. It’s like someone sat down with a datapad and pen and really considered how to make the worst scavenger hub in all of Jakku. They’ve probably got a PhD in shitty, shitty architecture and a degree in ‘How To Create The Worst Possible Stink.’

 

“We’ll land here, hike out,” says Rey. “The sands are unstable; we could land the Falcon, lose it forever.”

 

“ _ Urgh,” _ Finn says, again. “Jakku.  _ Fucking _ Jakku,” and he tugs one of Rey’s scarves over his head, hoping that it will at least filter out the worst of the smell, which is dry and clinging and boiled hot, piss and rotting meat and the reek of human bodies that have never washed. After all, water is too precious here to be wasted on such niceties.  

 

(Rey looks at water like it’s the universe’s greatest wonder. If Finn wasn’t so blind, he’d realise that it was the same look she gave him. But he is, because young lovers are so often oblivious to each other’s affections: the universe fairly demands such drama.)

 

They leave the Falcon and trek out: Rey leading, Luke at the rear, Poe and Finn making sure that they tread precisely where Rey steps. The sand moves around them, waving and undulating like a great inland sea. Finn’s never seen anything quite like it. 

 

“Death-worms,” Rey says, far too cheerily. Sweat congeals on Finn’s skin, runs into his eyes. He must have heard wrong: no one says  _ death worms _ in that tone of voice, not even Miss ‘I Was Raised By Sand and Nothing Scares Me.’

 

“Death-worms?  _ Death-worms?” _

 

“Yup” she says, “but they’re not that bad -- they only eat other worms, don’t see humans as food; if you stand on top of them they can get confused and come to the surface. They mistake your footsteps for rain. That’s when people die; they drown in the sand.”

 

“...right,” says Finn. Poe shrugs at him. 

  
  


Jakku is a fucking death-trap. But at no point does Finn think:  _ let’s go back _ . Rey’s here. Thus, he is here. It is as simple as that. 

 

Once, Jedi younglings had to do this quest alone. Luke’s made it very, very clear that the old Jedi ways -- for all their mythology -- aren’t infallible in the slightest, and no apprentice of his is ever going to see isolation as something glorious, something to aspire to. 

 

_ Jedi have friends _ , he had said to Finn, earnestly,  _ Rey needs you. It’s the way of the Force -- everything is connected, and so we must be connected. We must not be alone. That way lies madness, and the Dark Side, and drowning.  _

 

_ Drowning? _

 

_ Yes. The Force is like a great ocean -- you must maintain control, or else you plunge into the depths where nothing stays human for long.  _

 

_ You make it sound so frightening.  _

 

_ It is everything in the universe -- everything that ever was or ever will be -- of course it is frightening! _

 

_ But -- _

 

_ But it is also beautiful. It is wonderful. And you have some awareness of it, I can sense -- _

 

_ No! No I don’t want to know more, I don’t, I --  _

 

And that had been that. Luke’s never pushy. He doesn’t need to be. He has the implacable patience of a man who knows exactly how the future will unwind. 

 

(Finn is more than a little scared of him.)

 

Anyway: they walk on through blistering heat; and after three hours they come to a Star Destroyer -- or what had once been one. It is charred and blackened and rusted, its nose shoving towards the sun as if howling defiance, huge chunks of metal splintered off and lying in the sand, thrusting towards the sky. 

 

“Here?” says Luke. Rey has stopped dead. Her fists have clenched. Finn reaches out, takes her hand, rubs her thumb over her wrist; she spins around, presses her face into the curve of his neck. She is very small, in that moment, very small and very sharp and he feels her lips skin back from her teeth, canines pressing against him -- not quite a bite, but uncomfortably close. She’s a feral thing, and he’s so in love he feels like he could die from it. 

 

“Rey?” says Poe. He looks at the Star Destroyer like he looks at anything with wings: like it’s the greatest wonder in the universe. 

 

(This is also the way he looks at Finn.  If Finn wasn’t so blind -- but he is, he has to be. Why? Ask Luke. He’d be glad to provide an answer, and you wouldn’t like it.  _ Finn is strong with the Force but will not accept her gifts; he does not want to learn; and for that I cannot blame him. But he’s making her jealous, making her spiteful, and he’s suffering the price. _ )

 

(Query further. Go on. Say what I know you want to say:  _ the Force is everything, everything that is and ever will be -- why would it get worked up over one boy?) _

 

(And Luke will say:  _ what god do you know that isn’t petty? She’s chosen him, and he’s ignoring her cry. She doesn’t take rejection lightly. Look at my father: he was her favourite son, the Force in human skin -- look at how he loved. Look at how he lived. _ )

 

Anyway. Finn doesn’t know this; he doesn’t know any of this; and if there is a note of desperation to Luke’s offers --  _ you need a teacher  _ \-- then he does not hear them. 

 

(Ask Luke:  _ why don’t you tell him this? Make him study?) _

 

(And Luke will say:  _ gifts accepted through fear are not gifts at all; if I push him into the ocean he shall surely drown; he must take the steps on his own. _ )

 

Poe says, “So, it’s in there?”

 

Rey nods. Her hands are tight on Finn’s arms. She hugs too tightly, clinging close. She says, “It’s inside, deep inside, deep below the sand -- “

 

“In we go then,” says Poe. 

  
  


* * *

 

 

There are ghosts in Jakku, and Rey knew them all by name. The Lady was one of the fainter ones: no more than a silver fluttering that crested a certain sand-dune every moonrise for no more than an hour. She never spoke, and never attained a form beyond a swish of shadow -- like the turn of a skirt, hence the name. The Pilot was a steel-bright flash that sparked from nowhere, arcing over Unkar Platt’s hovel every other new moon. Lasted maybe five seconds but if you looked close enough you saw the curve of wings in flight; you heard the cry of  _ cap’n I’m going down  _ \-- and no more. There was The Hutt, Lazy Bone Susan, Red Dog, Hungry Girl, Boneless Boy and more. Some saw more ghosts than others, but there is no-one on Jakku who saw none -- for it is a graveyard, and if you’re not born with the sight then you learn it. 

 

Rey saw all the ghosts. Every single one. And she heard them, sometimes, whispering at night. Some were comforting. Some were cruel. She permitted none within her home; she was told this when she was eight, by Old Woman Victory.   _ Do not let the dead in, no matter how kindly they speak to you. They will make you shadows. They will make you forget. They will take your name away and give you a new one. They will take from you everything and leave you the empty promise of immortality. When you hear them whisper, here is what you must do: bar the door and say, “You are the dead and my heart beats on. Leave me be.” _

 

(And when Rey met Kylo Ren, years and years later, she looked into his head and saw a boy with no name, a boy who has burned up everything he loved to satisfy some ghost -- a boy who heard the howling outside his door and welcomed the dead with open arms. 

 

Such monsters are not to be feared, or pitied, but struck down as one would strike down a mad dog -- it is mercy.) 

 

She thinks of ghosts as they near the Star Destroyer: the Lady, the Pilot, and -- strangest of all -- The Old Man. She was the only one who ever saw him: a wrinkled, hunched-over creature that shuffled along the sands like each step pained him. When she first saw him she was six, young enough to be confused about what was real and what was an apparition, and she offered him a swig of water. He had looked at her for a long, long time with -- well, she thought of them as  _ eyes _ but they weren’t really: they were holes through which the sun ached. 

 

He had said, “Do not give me that, child: you are thirsty. Drink it and live. Think of yourself first and always.”

 

And she had said, “I am thirsty; but aren’t you?”

 

And he said, “I am beyond thirst. I had a daughter, once, did you know?”

 

“Do you miss her?”

 

“She ran from me. My only family -- and she ran.”

 

Rey did not cry much anymore: there was not enough water in her body to spare any for leakage. 

 

(Years later, she will still rub under her eyes when she weeps, gathering the moisture, and suck her fingers dry.)

 

She said, “My family left me here too; they’ll be back soon.”

 

“They will never return for you, little one. You should hate them for that.”

 

“Shut up! I don’t hate them! I love them -- they’ll come back, they promised, they did -- “

 

“There is no hate in you. No fear. Only hunger: a desperate, hungry hope. That will turn to hate, in time -- “

 

“Old man, shut up. I don’t hate, not ever,” and in a fit of childish pique, she kicked sand at his calves. It went straight through him.

 

He knelt. His eyes were gateways into some distant furnace, but Rey didn’t blink or look away. She showed her teeth. “You are a jackal, you are a feral scavenger bitch, and you are the child of someone I once knew --”

 

Rey tried to hit him with her staff. It was like trying to slap a sand-ghast: he simply dissolved, then reformed. “Brave girl,” he said. “There is a TIE fighter five hundred paces west from here. In it, you will find salvage that you can trade for ten portions. Go, hurry.”

 

“Why -- why are you helping me?”

 

“Because I can. Go.”

 

And each time she saw The Old Man after that he told her where she might find something to trade and insulted her; and she grew fond of him, for he brought her food; and in Jakku you fall in love with anything that keeps the limitless hunger of the desert at bay. And then one day, when she was fifteen -- or thereabouts -- and inside, in the pitch of night, he scraped at her door and called, “Rey, Rey, let me in. We must talk. We must talk of who you are. When I was your age I became the student of a great man. It is time for you to follow the same path. I will teach you all I know my child, my child, my only child.”

 

And Rey, accustomed to the ways of the dead, said: “Leave me alone; you are dead and my heart beats on and on.”

 

“You are my only living family.”

 

“The dead lie. I am alive.”

 

“Does an old man not get to see the child he reared?”

 

“You are dead,” and her cheeks were wet, “you are dead and I am alive and my heart beats on.”

 

“There is a boy who thinks he is greater than you, but I killed his father and I can kill him as well -- ask and it shall be done -- my Rey, my little Rey, I would give you the morning and the night and I would give you what affection I can muster. It is not much but it is more than you have. There is a boy who called for his father and killed me. There is a boy who calls for his father and kills himself. Let me in and I will teach you to be greater than them all. Rey -- “

 

“You are dead and you lie. You lie. You speak in riddles and nothing you say is true -- “

 

“But everything I have ever said to you has been true, every little thing, my Rey -- I would give you --”

 

“I am alive, Old Man! I am alive and you are not! That’s all there is.”

 

“Rey, you are my family -- “

 

“Old Mother Victory died three weeks ago and two days ago she said she was my mother and she lied, they lie, they always lie, Jakku is a graveyard and my mother will return --”

 

“Now who is lying?”

 

“Say my name. Please Rey, give me that much: say my name.”

 

And Rey knew that the dead, once named, were good as bound to you; and to give a ghost its true name was to invite it into the deepest chambers of your heart and she wept as she said, “I know your name and I will not say it, I will not.”

 

She never saw the Old Man again. He was, perhaps, the most eloquent of the ghosts; but he was not the most trying; and she forgot about him, for the desert erodes memory. 

 

* * *

 

“Grandfather,” says Kylo Ren, and Rey could have told him: name the dead, and they consume you. 

 

* * *

 

Anyway. 

 

“I’ll go first,” says Rey, hunger sharp under her tongue, Anakin Skywalker’s lightsabre jostling on her hip. The song is less a song and more a hook jabbed under her ribs. She must find the crystal, she must. 

 

“Down there?” says Finn. 

 

They are inside the Star Destroyer’s main chamber. The ceiling is jagged open, the sky spilling in. The shadows are absolute black; the light searing. A great crack bisects the floor. At its widest point, Rey -- with Poe and Chewie’s help -- has erected the sort of apparatus miners use to plumb the depths. There are five harnasses, one large enough for a Wookie. 

 

( _ If you are alone then you drown -- ) _

 

“You keep watch,” says Rey, “I’ll go down on my own.”

 

“Rey, is that wise?”

 

“It’s unstable. More than one person is a risk. If you step on the wrong bit of metal you could trigger a slide,” says Rey, all clinical scavenger. “And we don’t know how narrow it gets. No: it should just be me,” and without waiting for a reply, she steps into the smallest of the harnesses, tightening the straps. She tugs her goggles down. Only the lower half of her face can be seen. “Chewie, please man -- er, Wookie -- the winch.”

 

“Be careful cub,” he says. She grins. 

 

“Always am, packfather,” she says. “Master?”

 

Luke nods. “Be careful Rey. The Force is…”

 

“Restless,” says Finn.

 

Rey’s lips pull tight. Finn’s anxious -- she feels the high electric thrill of it over her skin -- but she ignores it. 

 

“Jakku’s full of ghosts, Master,” she says, “just never name them, and never let them in,” and with this she kicks back into the crevasse.

  
  


* * *

 

 

Rey plunges deeper and deeper within the Star Destroyer, the dark absolute, the Force silent save the increasingly urgent cry of the ilum crystal. Her mind narrows, sharpens, and when her feet tap down onto a sand-strewn deck her only feeling is frustration: she’s not there yet. 

 

She turns on her torch. She’s in the lower-most engine of the Star Destroyer, great towering machinery dripping sand and the decay of the ages around her. The beam of her flashlight picks out features here and there, snippets of the monstrous whole.

 

It is cold and quiet and airless -- and she is not deep enough. The ilum crystal is below her.

 

Not a song, not a cry, but a bone-deep impulsion. She ignites her lightsabre -- but it isn’t hers, not really, it is a placeholder it is -- and slashes into the hull. Sparks fly up, bright as the wings of a firebird. She keeps hacking, cutting down -- 

 

_ Rey, this is madness, those hulls are too thick,  _ Luke says; but his voice is faint; he’s such a long way up. He doesn’t know what it’s like in the dark and the cold. He doesn’t  _ know  _ \--

 

A tug on her harness. 

 

_ Rey, come on, you must come back up -- I don’t like this  _ \--

 

Rey swings the sabre. The cord severs. The next tug makes it swing like a hanged thing. 

 

_ Sorry Master. I’ve got to. Can’t you feel it? _

 

And she hacks again, and this hull has been eroded by sand and time and crumbles under her assault. Chunks of metal tumble down into the abyss beneath her. She shines her torch down. Nothing. It gapes like a open mouth. 

 

_ Rey! Attach the cord! Now! He’s here  _ \--

 

Rey clamps her thoughts down. His voice cuts off. She can turn the Force bond off -- fancy that. 

 

As if in a dream, she steps forwards. 

 

And she falls. 

 

* * *

 

Finn’s never felt comfortable about killing fellow Stormtroopers: he can’t help but think  _ if they’d been born in the Resistance they’d be my friends, they would fly with Poe and fight with Rey, but they’ve been born to hate and war and --  _

 

But all moral complexity is cast aside when someone is trying to kill the man you love.

 

Okay, okay: he can admit it to himself, here and now, when he feels death’s blood-reeking breath on his nape. He can think that sentence:  _ I love Poe _ . And the words throb at the base of his tongue but it isn’t like he can say them, because a trooper is swinging a fist at his face and he ducks out of the way, recalls the blind-spots those helmets create -- gets into one -- positions a blow from precisely the right place, knocks the trooper over and puts a blaster bolt into her heart. 

 

(How does he know that this trooper is a girl? How does he know that her name is Bell that she loves the colour of the sky that -- )

 

Finn shoots the trooper going for Poe. The bolt should have soared wide; the trooper plunges for the floor; but somehow it connects and the trooper ( _ his name is Sunni _ ) is blown backwards, dead in an instant. Finn  _ hears _ his heart stop. 

 

_ My son, my favoured son, do you --  _

 

_ Yes! Yes you mad bitch, yes I do, if you want me you can have me -- just don’t let Poe get hurt  _ \--

 

And Luke, cutting down troopers with clean quick swoops of his sabre, feels it: the exultant rush of the Force around him. Finn staggers back -- but comes back, eyes blazing and in his hand is --

 

No.  _ No _ .

 

\-- in his hand is Anakin Skywalker’s lightsabre.

 

* * *

 

“Hello my child,” says the Old Man. 

 

“I’m not your child,” Rey says, automatically.

 

“No. Will you give me my name?”

 

“I am living and you are dead,” Rey says, “I will give you nothing,” stalking forwards, her hand going to her waist where -- 

 

The lightsabre is gone.

 

Coldness surges through her skin. “Why -- “ she starts. The Old Man interrupts:

 

“It is not yours, child. It never was.”

 

“Where is my crystal then?”

 

“Not a crystal but a lightsabre in its entirety. It is beautiful. Would you like to see it?”

 

“What’s the price?” says Rey, for everything on Jakku has a price.

 

“You know, once I was young and I enjoyed the favours of a lovely young woman. And when she grew fat with child she knew better to ask me for money, and she fled to the Outer Rim. And she bore her daughter. And the daughter grew old, grew old and proud, and thought she was beyond the age of child-rearing -- but the Force is infinite in its devilry, and blessed her with a baby. And she was plagued by dreams throughout her pregnancy and she knew that her child would be strong with the Force. And she knew who her father was, and she feared whelping another like him. So when the girl showed signs of Force ability -- well, what could they do but abandon you?”

 

“What’s the price?”

 

“I am your grandfather, Rey.”

 

“And? I don’t know who you are -- “

 

“Oh, I think so. Tell me: just how welcoming will Skywalker be, when he realises that he is training Palpatine’s get?”

 

“Stop it! You’re not! You’re not -- “

 

“Let me show you something,” and before her the darkness warps: she sees Luke, young and bright and ferocious, showing his teeth, swinging his lightsabre towards a man prone on the floor -- 

 

_ Strike me down with all your hatred --  _

 

“You are my legacy. Mine,” and he shows his teeth and his eyes are slivers of fire and Rey cannot breathe. “You are the only child of the Sith. The universe will kneel to you --”

 

She sees Luke. She sees his eyes, cold and dead, and she sees the vivid green of his sabre flash --

 

“They do not want you. The Force has snatched your lightsabre from you; you are not the child of Anakin Skywalker. Did you think you were? Oh my. Oh yes, you did, you did -- “ his voice is ripe with malignant glee. “You thought he was your  _ father  _ \-- oh how you wished that he was your father. It makes sense, after all! He had a good reason for abandoning you -- all that  _ guilt _ . And don’t you look like Leia? Look at you -- plaiting your hair into a crown, like it makes you royalty. You are not her child. You will never be her child. She would trade you for Kylo in a heartbeat; he is her  _ blood _ \-- and you, my darling, you are  _ nothing _ to her.”

 

Rey’s legs give way. Her palms slap the stone floor. Tears boil hot down her face.  _ You are nothing to them  _  -- and of course she is nothing to them, she is not Kylo Ren, she is not Ben, she is a desert jackal, a monster with sharp teeth -- and Finn loves Poe more than her -- oh he does love her but --

 

( _ you need a pilot? I need a pilot _ )

 

\-- he loves Poe more and she’s not enough, never enough, and Palpatine (she knows his name, she knows it -- ) reaches for one of the pins in her hair and tugs it loose. The braid unwinds, flops over her face, long rank strands. 

 

“You’re nothing to her,” he says, so so gentle. He kneels in front of her. “But my darling -- you are  _ everything _ to me. You are my only child. My only legacy. Oh, how brightly you shine. Finn doesn’t love you like you love him; it is not his fault; he has never known gentleness and you offered it to him and he mistook it for romance.”

 

“He loves Poe -- “

 

“Oh yes. The pilot. He doesn’t like you, does he? Or maybe he does. Does it really matter? He loves Leia Organa more than anything; if she -- when she -- orders your death, he will obey. He is a soldier my darling. They will call you sithspawn. They will call you last-child-of-the-emperor. They will call you my heir and they will kill you. I am the only one who loves you; I am your  _ grandfather _ . Give me your hand --” and without asking for permission he takes her wrist and into her palm he presses a lightsabre. It is ancient, rusting, double-ended. “It was mine, and now it calls to you.”

 

Rey curls her fingers over the lightsabre. It ignites: two beams of brilliant, brilliant green. 

 

“They’re not my blood,” she says, rocks back on her haunches and lifts her right hand. Lightning shoots from her fingers in a clear, jagged path, white and blue as the heart of a star. 

 

* * *

 

“It isn’t too late,” says Luke. He feels Kylo Ren’s rage: the frothing spit of a mad dog, the churn of the sea, the depthless bitterness of a boy who has not grown up. “Ben, it is --”

 

Ben; Kylo Ren. Luke can no longer tell where one ends and the other begins. They bleed together. He is no longer so certain that Ben is not dead -- but he cannot give up. He  _ cannot _ . This is the Light side: endless, endless toil, the thrash of surf, the press of the tide.

 

He prepares himself for another strike --

 

\-- that does not come. Kylo Ren, carnivore-fast, spins away from their combat and aims a blow at Finn. It is angled towards his neck. It will kill and Luke cannot -- 

 

All around them, the Force  _ howls _ . 

 

“Ren!” barks Rey. She stands at the edge of the crevasse, hair wild around her face, hands bloodied from where she has climbed up, soft fingers against hard rock. He doesn’t pause; and Rey lifts her hand and lightning shoots from the tips of her fingers and behind her is a man with his features in shadow and -- and --

 

It cannot be.

 

It  _ cannot _ .

 

But Kylo Ren is thrown backwards and he screams, the hideous high wail of a child experiencing pain for the first time: it is a cry of pure grief. Rey grins, showing every one of her white teeth, polished by desert winds. Light sinks into her skin. She’s something elemental scraped from the bowels of the earth, something animal and hungry and she’s never been closer to the Force and he’s never been so scared for her --

 

* * *

 

“Do you know what they taught me out in the sands?” says Rey,  “That the dead only have power when you name them,” and she snarls --  _ snarls  _  -- the words, all animal fury, and lashes her lightsabre at him and it is only  _ chance  _ that he parries it. She spins, letting the force of her blow carry her around -- 

 

“My grandfather was  _ Vader _ ,” barks Kylo Ren, thumping at his flank -- seeking pain, Rey knows, seeking the clarity of the dark side -- and there is a great hot surge of black, rancid energy in the air -- Kylo surges forwards, strengthened anew. Rey throws up her spare hand: lightning bursts forth, but it ricochets off to the side --

 

Because where Kylo Ren had been is the Old Man, and he is smiling, and the lightning glances off his outstretched hand, arcs over Rey’s shoulder and hits Luke full in the chest. 

 

Her Master collapses, very neatly. Rey tastes her heart in her mouth. Palpatine laughs and he’s a ghost he’s just a ghost --  _ but he isn’t -- because she’s invited him in because in her pain and her hatred she gave him the name he wanted --  _

 

Kylo Ren manages, “Do you see him --”

 

“Yeah,” says Rey, “yeah -- you’re not the only one with a famous grandfather,” and she’s going to swing her sabre, she’s going to cut the ghost in half, she’s going to kill Ren, she’s going to --

 

“Rey.  _ Rey --  _ “

 

( _ he loves Poe more than me he does he does he does -- ) _

 

(Rey, says Old Woman Victory, says Luke. The dead always lie. Ghosts always lie.)

 

Rey shoves her face up to the ghost’s eyes -- like two holes into the heart of a sun. She stands straight and tall and unharmed. “Family’s who you use,” she spits, “and I follow whatever legacy I want. I love Finn and I love Luke and you are nothing to me, you are  _ nothing _ . Do you understand, dead man? You are  _ nothing _ .” She hesitates. Remembers being eight and tiny and says, “You are dead and I  am alive. My heart beats on. And I have no use for you.”

 

* * *

 

 

“General -- I’m keeping the lightsabre,” she says. “It’s mine. He is dead; he’s nothing. But the lightsabre is mine. General, I can understand if -- “

 

“Please. Call me Leia.”

 

“I’ll...I should go -- Luke -- “

 

“Luke has survived worse. Calm down. Come here.”

 

Rey obliges. Leia holds out her hands. She remembers how her palms spat lightning and does not move. 

 

Leia sighs, then reaches up to Rey’s hair. Rey flinches back; but Leia tuts her tongue against her teeth, quirks one eyebrow. “Stay still.”

 

She starts to plait Rey’s hair, strand after strand, building it onto a crown on her head. “They still call me sithspawn,” she says. “They call me war-hungry wolf-bitch whore. Every time I raise my voice they speak of Vader. They say this; but it doesn’t make it true. Do you understand?”

 

“I hurt him. I --”

 

“You didn’t kill my boy. You could have done and you didn’t.”

 

“He’s your blood.”

 

“I know. That’s why if the time comes... _ when  _ it comes...it has to be me. A mother’s mercy.”

 

This time, Rey does not pull her hand away.

 

* * *

 

 

And on the other side of camp, a sex-sore and sweat-soaked Finn seeks out Luke.

 

“I think I need a teacher,” he says. 

 

“Yes,” says Luke, “yes you do. The first lesson is this: when Force-sensitive individuals have sex, everyone knows about it. I’m delighted that you and Poe have consumated your relationship, but perhaps you should have a discussion with him.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because _ both of you _ were thinking about my apprentice. Love is a wonderful thing, is it not?”

  
  
  



End file.
